


le pògan a bheòil (with the kisses of his mouth)

by quillquiver



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Blow Jobs, Clandestine Wedding, Eloping, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Hand Jobs, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Safe Sex Practices, Scotland, Secret Relationship, Wedding Night, dean and cas get married in secret and there is Romance, historical inaccuracies because I make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:08:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23992063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quillquiver/pseuds/quillquiver
Summary: What kind of bridegroom is late to his own wedding?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 18
Kudos: 172





	le pògan a bheòil (with the kisses of his mouth)

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you watch the first 45mins of Braveheart at midnight. I am not sorry.
> 
> In this fic, like in medieval Scotland, a marriage is legal if it's between two consenting parties who pledge themselves to one another and then sleep together. I swear, [I'm not making this up](http://medievalscotland.org/history/handfasting.shtml). There didn't need to be a church, a priest, or a witness. These marriages could take place anywhere at any time and were called 'irregular'; regular marriages have the church, priest, etc.
> 
> Handfasting also features heavily in this fic. It's a kind of betrothal/intent to marry, again, only requiring the consenting parties. After a pair is betrothed, once they sleep together they're also legally married. I can imagine that the ease of legal marriage back then caused a ton of problems for families, but were great for star-crossed lovers, couples who got pregnant out of wedlock, horny kids and, I'd guess, queer folx. This is my take on that!
> 
> Finally, there's a lot of hand-wavy stuff, especially as pertaining to when this fic is actually set. I tagged it Medieval, but there are elements of post-Jacobite Rebellion in the styles of dress and the fact that Scots Gaelic is banned. So, when does it actually take place? Who knows! It's a mystery. What's important to remember is that both in the Middle Ages and post-rebellion, there is a ton of anti-Scottish sentiment and racism among the English, who rule the land. Post-rebellion, even traditional dress (kilts) were banned for a while.
> 
> Apologies for my Scots - I'm not anything resembling a speaker of any kind, so Google was my friend. If the translation is bad, please tell me!

Castiel knows he’s late.

Stuffing the oil into his sporran, he hastily wraps his tartan around himself, carefully slipping through the castle and down to the stables. He’s halfway there before he’s realized he’s forgotten his shoes, but a look at the moon pushes him forward. Dean will hopefully appreciate his efforts to bathe, even if his feet will be a mess when he arrives.

The stall on the farthest left is already empty, and Cas’s heart races to see it, sneaking past and into the hole in the wall that needs repairing. Sprinting to the paddock, he vaults over the fence and makes for the single stable at the end. Just broken, the mare rears back, and Castiel becomes, suddenly — painfully — aware of the lack of tack adorning her stall. Thoroughly out of options, Cas offers an apple to buy her allegiance and throws himself atop her back, unsaddled and every inch the _amhasg_ he is so often called. His dirk slices through the ropes holding her halter and he squeezes his heels into her sides, jumping the fence and shooting down into the valley.

What kind of bridegroom is late to his own wedding?

~ * ~

By the time they reach the boulder, Cas is sure he’s less than presentable, but there’s no time; he dismounts, hastily pawing at his hair, pulling at his clothes and —

“Cas?”

Dean is radiant, bathed in moonlight from head to toe; the stuff spills across the plain white shirt hanging off his shoulders and the colours of his tartan, glinting as it kisses his clan pin. Clean-shaven, his hair has been styled and brushed back as if he’s attending some sort of dance or dinner or celebration — a wedding in a church, maybe, instead of the middle of the mountains. Something regular, with all their family as witnesses, and a priest to say the words.

Cas’s fingers reach out to brush against the line of Dean’s tartan, slung from shoulder to hip in the perfect mirror of his own. “You look beautiful,” he says.

Dean shrugs. Even in the dim, the blush is visible in his cheeks. “Nice weather for a wedding.”

“I would marry you in a bog during a thunderstorm,” Cas teases. “But… this will do nicely, too. I’m sorry I’m late.”

“I, uh, was a little worried you weren’t coming.”

“Gabriel kept me at table far longer than I wanted, and then I — I had to bathe and dress and pack.” Dean frowns, but Cas doesn’t let him interrupt, barreling on with his own flushed cheeks. “Of course, that was all in vain because the horse was unsaddled and I forgot my shoes, but… I wanted to look pleasing for you.” He shrugs, toeing the ground. “I only plan on being married the once.”

Dumfounded — though Castiel cannot imagine why — Dean reaches forwarded and grasps the material of his shirt, a smile blooming across his face such that kissing is made incredibly difficult. “Wanted to look _pleasing_ for me,” he echoes. “Christ.” Dean takes Cas’s bottom lip between his teeth, splays his hand over the small of his back. They stumble towards the boulder and Castiel presses him up against it, grinning wide and wolfish as the man starts to fumble with his shirt. Dean’s right leg hitches around Cas’s waist even as his clever fingers grasp and pull in handfuls, until Cas’s shirt is half-hanging over his kilt. He toys with the woolen material and Castiel groans, ripping himself away. He pants clouds of humidity into the cold air and grins as Dean follows him until he’s too far away to kiss. Dean's hair is a mess from Castiel’s fingers, and the sash of his kilt is caught in the crook of his elbow. Cas’s left palm slides further up his thigh, under his kilt, and breathes out shaky into the crook of his neck. “ _Mo ghràidh_ ,” he murmurs.

Dean smiles and takes his hand.

In this part of the country, there are few trees; the ground smooth with grass and uneven with rock. It’s almost a shame that theirs cannot be a clandestine wedding in some romantic wood in the south, or the closer outcropping known for its view of the loch. People get married there all the time, in secret — couples with child or star-crossed lovers or rebellious young people. Men and women.

Not people like them.

Castiel knows what they're doing is dangerous. Forbidden. He’s been told it is wrong, that there is no love, no affection between two men beyond that of brotherhood; that when men lie together it is nothing but a debauched, violent act. But with Dean… Castiel loves Dean as devotedly as he would any woman. They come to together in all kinds of ways; gentle and sweet, playful — and their roughness, when it happens, is never violent, never meant to cause hurt beyond pleasure. The love Castiel has for Dean is… it’s every way he knows how to love another person.

It is not wrong.

“Watch your step.”

They pick their way down the lee of the hill, where moonlight illuminates the bank of a small stream. Dean pulls him to a patch of grass among the rocks and grasps his hands tightly. “How —” He clears his throat. “How d’you wanna do this?”

It’s nothing for Cas to step forward and kiss him again, deep and wet and slow. He moves back only far enough for their lips to cling as he speaks. “Here,” he says. “I have no preference beyond that.”

“Like this?” Dean voice trembles.

When Cas nods, their foreheads touch. “Yes.”

“Handfasting first, a-and then…”

“Handfasting first.”

“Yeah,” Dean breathes. “I —” He fumbles in his shirt, pulling out a strip of cloth that matches his tartan. Pressed between his fore-and middle-fingers, he holds it aloft between them. “Got it.” He licks his lips nervously and Cas smiles, moving into the appropriate hold; left hands clasped, opposite and palm-to-palm, fingers brushing each other’s wrists. With his own free hand, Cas pulls his strip of cloth from within the folds of his kilt, this one plain white and used for his own parents’ handfasting. Their knuckles brush and very suddenly, the whole thing is exciting and terrifying and _real_. “How do we…?”

“Marry me.”

Dean blurts it out as if the words were pressing against the backs of his teeth, chest heaving like they were plucked directly from his heart. His blushes profusely, squeezing his eyes shut. “I-I mean — fuck. That’s not — Castiel Milton, I —”

“Yes,” Cas says immediately. Emphatically.

Dean’s smile is small and teasing. “…Yeah?”

“ _Yes._ As long as… as long as you marry me, in return.”

“I will.”

Whether or not they’re supposed to kiss at this juncture seems irrelevant; their mouths press in a kind of affection that is almost painful in its sweetness. Fingers curl more tightly around each other’s wrists, and when they pull apart, Cas is too much for his body, the grin on his face so big it’ll split it in two.

“Here.” Dean appears to be just as moved, his own eyes bright and face open and awed as he tries to coordinate their free hands to wrap and tie the strips around their held ones. It takes a few failed attempts before they manage to be successful, heads touching and turned down to the scant space between them. Castiel cannot stop staring.

He is _betrothed_. He will be married to Dean within the hour.

“Where should we —”

“So —”

Dean huffs a laugh at Cas’s rueful smile. Tilts his head for more kisses as Castiel’s fingers tug at the knots around their hands. The scraps of fabric fall away easily, and it’s a selfish, jealous thing inside of him that stuffs his strip into Dean’s shirt, right above his heart. They will not wear fede rings, but Dean will have this reminder of their joining. He will have…

Cas’s fingers play along Dean’s belt, quickly undoing the clasp as he tosses it to the side. Dean grins against his cheek. Shyly drapes his own handfasting cloth around Castiel’s shoulders and presses a kiss to the hinge of his jaw. Grinning at each other, Cas grasps Dean’s tartan and pulls, unwavering in his gaze as he walks back towards the slope of the hill. He stumbles thrice before falling back onto the grass and taking Dean down with him.

There are a series of yelps and _ow_ s before they manage to settle, Dean draped over Cas as if shielding him. It’s more fun to kiss this way, to have a surface to be pressed into and to use as leverage. Castiel pushes off the shoulder of Dean’s tartan as his left hand slips between the man’s kilt and shirt, guiding him in a lazy thrust. Undoing the kilt is easy, as are the hose and garters, and soon Dean is pulling the white shirt up and over his head to be tossed aside with the rest, handfasting cloth falling between them, dutifully ignored in favour of other things.

He’s beautiful, unashamed of his nudity and his arousal as he sits back in Castiel’s lap, staring. His nipples pebble in the cold air, and he huffs something between a laugh and a moan as Cas rises up to kiss him there; teeth scraping across the sensitive flesh before laving his tongue over it and moving on. Dean buries his hands in Cas’s dark hair and breathes out heavy all at once. Castiel likes Dean’s chest — the red-tinged hair across his solar plexus, the strength there. He pays special attention to his breastbone and nipples, blowing on the latter in time with the slow, easy slide of his hand downwards. His palm moves all the way down to Dean’s knee before starting the journey in reverse, this time dragging his nails up the inside of his betrothed’s thigh. Dean’s mouth drops open with a low sound that Cas easily swallows.

He savours the moment his fingers card through Dean’s pubic hair and wrap his around the base of his cock. Dean’s arms tighten around him, body arching in an attempt to bring them closer even as he breathes too heavily for kisses. “Fuck,” he mumbles, “Fuck, Cas, I —”

It takes only a moment to pull his hand back and give it an obscene lick, but it’s enough for Dean to catch his wrist mid-air, pressing his mouth to his knuckles as he paws at Cas’s clothes. The shoulder of his tartan drops to his waist, his belt and kilt undone in short order. Dean smirks against the back of Cas’s hand and threads their fingers together, climbing off his lap and guiding Castiel overtop him. “Like this.”

Hand twisted in the side of Cas’s shirt, dragging up _up_ , Dean spreads his legs as he pulls Cas’s hand down. It’s easier for Dean to wrap his legs around him this way, easy to ride the crease of his thigh. Not slippery enough, though. “My mouth?” Cas bites the question into Dean’s lips, soothing the hurt with flicks of his tongue as Dean groans. He pushes at his shoulders and gets a smirk in return.

Castiel is by no means an expert at sucking cock, but it is something he enjoys very much. He likes burying his face in Dean’s groin and letting him ride his face, enjoys licking and kissing along his length and taking him into his mouth. He knows Dean’s noises and his movements; how to tell when he’s close, when he enjoys something immensely and when he doesn’t care for it at all. He likes the act of swallowing, likes the way his jaw aches after. Likes the way Dean looks at him. Kisses him.

Castiel has discovered that he is shameless in many ways, but none so much as this.

He lifts his gaze from Dean’s cock, shiny with his own spit, to find him looking down with wide eyes. Gorgeous. Cas licks a stripe up the inside of Dean’s thigh and dips his middle finger into his mouth, tracing a line with the wetted tip from across his perineum to his hole. His own prick is hard enough to crumble stone, but besides the aborted thrusts of his hips he ignores it. He wants — he _wants_ —

“Christ, Castiel…”

Cas traces his finger gingerly around Dean’s hole before carefully pressing inside. He kisses at Dean’s cock and watches the way his knees draw up and part, the way his body bows; his hand, buried in Cas’s hair, pushes him into his groin and Castiel _sucks_.

Dean becomes quieter the closer he gets — brows furrowed, eyes squeezed shut — his toes curl into the grass, entire body seizing as he spills into Cas’s mouth with a high, breathy noise. This time, Castiel does not swallow. This time, he spits Dean’s seed into his hand and reaches for his own prick.

“Oh, _Jesus_.”

Cas hums, one hand working himself while the other braces himself against the ground. Dean looks like what he imagines one of th old gods to be, bare and flushed and sated in the grass. Like some kind of radiant thing worthy of ballads and poetry. Lost in his own pleasure, Cas doesn’t realize Dean has moved until he’s touching him; hitching up his thigh as he captures his mouth in a messy kiss. He bats Cas’s hand to the side and wraps fingers around his slick prick.

It’s an embarrassingly short affair. One, two strokes and the warmth at the base of Cas’s spine sends a tinging up to the base of his skull and down to his fingertips. He crushes Dean to his chest as he spills over his fist, crying out into the juncture of his neck.

They’re married.

It’s a thought that barely registers, Cas too preoccupied with holding and being held. His gasps in the aftermath, slowly coming back to himself as Dean lays kisses on his half-bared shoulder. “… _Tha gaol agam ort_ ,” he breathes. _I love you_. 

Castiel clings more tightly, squeezing his eyes shut. They’re married, now; two souls bound in a forbidden act, the words said aloud in the forbidden tongue. “ _Tha gaol agam ort,_ ” he murmurs back. “ _Fear-taighe_.” _Husband._

“ _Fear-taighe_ ,” Dean repeats, thumbing at the back of Cas’s neck. He traces the column of his spine — up-down up-down — reaching forward to gingerly untangle the ties at the large collar of Cas’s shirt. Touching lightly, he presses fingers then a palm to the revealed skin, sliding to his bicep. Untied, the garment falls off his shoulder. “Y’know,” Dean murmurs. “I’d been a little upset we didn’t manage to get your shirt off —” Carefully, he lifts the fabric up and over Cas’s head. Tosses it aside. He traces a line down Castiel’s spine and over his belly, then up along the impression of his ribs, thumb swiping over his nipple until he stops, palm flat, over Castiel’s wildly beating heart. “But this is good, too.”

They’re close enough for their lips to catch should they speak, though Castiel isn’t certain when that happened. Dean brushes fingertips along his stubbled jaw and Cas presses into the contact. “I was distracted,” he rasps.

Dean hums. “I’ve heard that’s an easy thing, to be distracted in a marriage bed.” His voice has gone soft and sweet. It sounds like it comes from very far away.

“Yes,” Cas agrees faintly.

Dean closes the space between them.

~ * ~

“Christ, it’s fuckin’ freezing.”

Cas looks up from his own evening ablutions, goosebumps raised over his skin as he reaches back into the stream to wash his face. Dripping, he stands, mouth tugging into a smirk as he reaches for the other man. “Here, let me —”

Dean steps back. “Fuck no, stay away.”

“Dean, you’re being unreasonable. Body heat —”

“When you’re _dry_ , you numpty —”

Another step, and Dean curses as he’s forced further into the cold water. “Cas, if you come any closer, I swear — _Cas_!”

Castiel charges at him like they’re children, spluttering when Dean starts to kick up water. Chases him out of the stream and up onto the hill, where he finally catches him about his waist. Uses his momentum to slide his hands under Dean’s thighs and _lift_.

Cas isn’t sure if Dean yelps at the sudden height change, or the cold water now in direct contact with his sex. Perhaps both.

He grins even as Dean curses him, stumbling around before he finally manages to find his footing.

“I want an annulment,” he’s saying. “You’re such a —”

“Christ, you’re heavy,” Cas grunts.

“Heavy with _muscle_ —”

Freckled legs wrap more firmly around Cas’s waist, and they suddenly both become very aware of Castiel’s hand placement. A slight shift on Dean’s part have his fingers dipping into his crack. Cas bites back a groan. Dean smirks.

“Huh,” he says cheerfully. “Well, would you look at that.”

They tumble into the grass soon after.

~ * ~

It takes a second washing up, though this time is different than the last; it starts much the same way — the teasing, the complaining… but play gives way to staring like they haven’t since they first began courting. Cas catches Dean looking and he turns away like some blushing maiden, peeking back like he didn’t just have Cas inside him, like they aren’t bound in all the ways two people can be. Castiel grins down at his toes.

Dean wraps his tartan around Cas’s shoulders and offers him whiskey and slices of hard cheese. They sit in the lee of the hill, swaddled and half atop one another, and eat and drink and kiss until their lips are sore and their bellies are full. Castiel doesn’t think he’s ever been so in love. 

“Run away with me.”

Dean looks up from his cheese, swallowing thickly.

“Further north,” Cas continues. “We’d go as far as the ocean, up where people don’t care about who you are or where you came from as long as you keep to yourself. We could live in a cottage on a cliff, and sleep in the same bed, a-and…” he trails off. “Or we could get on a ship. Travel past England and to Rome, or Greece — Balthazar said men laying together is more common, there. And that the water is warmer.” He shakes his head. “Imagine bathing in a loch that isn’t cold?”

“I personally only prefer bathing in ice water,” Dean says. “Something about feeling like my balls are gonna fall off makes me all tingly.”

Cas smiles, though he knows the thing doesn’t reach his eyes. Truthfully, he doesn’t even know why he’s disappointed; they can’t leave Scotland. Moreover, Cas doesn’t want to — he’d be asking Dean to leave Sam and Ellen and Bobby and Jo, not to mention Castiel’s own family. And with the ever-worsening relations between the Scots and the English? He and Dean have a duty to protect their loved ones. To keep their traditions alive. To fight for their country, should it come to that.

Dean picks up his hand, cradling it, palm up, in both of his own. His fingers gingerly trace the lines there. He bites his lip. “ _M_ _o ghràidh,_ I’ll — I’ll run away with you every night for the rest of my life,” he says haltingly. He looks up, and Cas feels his heart swell and break all at the same time. Feels his vision start to blur. He knows he’s lucky; knows he’s beyond fortunate, but sometimes he wishes —

“ _Is tu an duine agam_ ,” Dean says, like it’s a vow and not a fact: _I am your husband_. “ _Ge bith dè a thachras, is ann leatsa a tha e_.” _No matter what happens, I’m yours._

“ _Mar a tha i_ ,” Cas vows in return.

_As am I._

~ * ~

They help each other get dressed, draping each other in their tartans and pinning the material in place. Cas’s shirt is deemed a lost cause, though by the way Dean touches him, he suspects it has less to do with the garment and more with a desire to see him bare. Biting his lip, Cas carefully tucks his parents’ handfasting cloth under Dean’s shirt, draping it around his neck. He grins when Dean tucks his own into the folds of Cas’s sash.

It’s a blessing to have to wait until the horse paddock before saying their goodnights. Dean watches raptly as Cas sorts out the mare, cutting new ropes to re-tie her in the stall, giving her food and water, another apple. Thanking her. He barely has time to jump the fence before Dean presses him back into it with a series of joyful little kisses.

Cas flips them. “When will I see you again?”

Dean rolls his eyes despite the pleased flush of his cheeks. “Later.” He leans in but Castiel moves back, teasing.

“When,” he presses, grinning. Reaches into Dean’s shirt and tugs, revealing the end of the handfasting cloth. Just to see it. To be so close to the castle and see Dean wearing it. “At breakfast?”

Dean laughs, pleased. “Cas, that’s in hours.”

“Lunch, then,” he says. “Or before.”

Dean bites his lip. “Before.”

“Tell me.”

Cas toys with the end of the thin white cloth, looking at Dean intently as the other man stares back. Carefully, freckled fingers pull at Castiel’s own handfasting cloth. Dean groans to see it. “Fuck.” He bites a fervent kiss into the corner of Cas’s mouth. “Um. The stables at half-ten. In the little alcove.”

“And tonight?”

“Tonight,” Dean agrees. “Every night. I’ll say I’m ill —”

“You were ill last time,” Cas murmurs. “I’ll come up with something.” He holds Dean’s chin between forefinger and thumb, leading him in a kiss that make his knees feel weak and his toes curl in his boots. “I don’t want to go,” he confesses. Kisses him again.

Dean thumbs at the hair below his navel. Familiar. Claiming.

Their lips part with a faint popping sound, and Cas hesitantly unwinds his arms from where they slipped over Dean’s shoulders. Dean holds him fast, crushing him to his chest as he buries his face in Cas’s neck. “I’ll see you later,” he mumbles — for his own benefit or Castiel’s, Cas isn’t sure.

He nods. “Later.”

“The stables.”

“Yes.”

“And after.”

“Every night.”

First light is approaching fast.

Castiel slides their palms together, threading their fingers. The way Dean holds his hand brings a helpless, hopeless smile to his face. Cas kisses him once and only once; the kind of familiar, dry press of lips suited to spouses. “Sleep well, husband.”

“Sleep well,” Dean echoes faintly.

Castiel steps backward, their fingers clinging until the last possible moment, reaching out even once they’re forced to let go. Their gaze is unwavering from one another, and Cas holds it until he can’t anymore, until he’s forced to turn and run towards the castle, because if he walks he’ll end up back in Dean’s arms.

 _Husband_.

~ * ~

_"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine." —_ Solomon 1:2

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary:  
>   
>  _amhasg:_ barbarian  
>  _mo ghràidh_ : my darling/dear one


End file.
